Ziel’s Heart

Time heals all wounds. A commonly spoken phrase when one has experienced pain. Primarily when said pain is emotional rather than physical. I have been through the wringer regarding emotional pain. Now more than ever. And I find it to be peculiar and odd. For I was intricately in love with a person that I could have only met in my dreams. Yet, I somehow was blessed enough to know them in reality as well. The mirrored illusions of my happiness were too swiftly shattered by the bouldered weight of the end.

My happiness was at its peak when I saw them. My weekends were lived purely for them, and making it through the day was much easier during the week simply by phone. Whether I heard their blissful and angelic voice over the phone, or read their perfected words they messaged me through text, it all left me enthralled beyond measure. The time had come for me to see them on our usual planned weekend. I was ecstatic and had hastily made my way to their home. I was greeted by them with a loving and warm smile. We kissed under the heat of a parking garage, and thoroughly enjoyed the moment, as it had been over a week since we had last kissed. Their soft and inviting lips melted me into the moment. I felt as though we were one, through kissing alone. Nothing else mattered in that moment but their embrace and love.

I remember us walking to their home and conversing about such glorious frivolity and how our respective weeks were. Once we were beyond the threshold of their door, and it was closed, we made our way to their bed and kissed some more. Soon after we were done, they offered for us to lay down and cuddle, but I first desired to know what our day was going to look like. I still ponder on whether or not I should have just laid down with them and cuddled. Perhaps that choice could have led to a different reality or outcome. To answer my question, they replied with their upcoming college graduation and were recounting on all who are expected to be there. Family, friends and the like. And then an uppercut with the strength of Atlas and the speed of light struck me.

They told me that they believed that it would be best if we were no longer together. I was left in horror. How could this be? Things between us were wondrous at their worst, and magnificently heaven-sent at their best. I could recall no arguments between us nor anything akin. So, where did this sudden desire of severing our relationship come from? They said they felt things were heading to a place they were not ready for, and that, subsequently, it was all moving too fast. Their face was flushed with the color of a rose, but showed no signs of its meaning anymore. They began to crumple their face in a teary-eyed expression, as water flowed from their eyes. I could feel everything and nothing all at once. My heart was in shambles, and I wanted only to embrace them and perhaps allot the chance that their mind would change. I wanted to believe that this was all merely a ruse or a cruel joke that went too far. I wished that they did not even know how to speak those words or know that feeling of wanting to breakup with me.

Wishes and wants of a tortured and used soul are never realized nor even met halfway. I could see it in their drowned eyes that they truly meant what they said. Completely bewildered, I couldn’t even bear to look them in the eye. My heart was burning fiercely, but not with the passionate fire it became accustomed to. The burning pain was afflicting me with too much at once, and my mind began to race and overthink as it usually does. They were asking me if I had anything to say and what I was thinking. Yet, what I was truly thinking I could not say. “I want you to stay. We can work this out, I know we can. You haven’t explored all of the options like you said. If you need to see me less than once a week then I am okay with it. Please. Just anything but saying goodbye to you. I love you so much, and I know you love me just as much. You don’t really want to break up with me, you just have a lot on your plate right now. Please, rely on me to aid you and be the shoulder to cry on. Do not push me away, I beg of you.” Thoughtless ramblings that were never heard or said.

I merely accepted what they said at face value, and said nothing in defense of the love we had built. For how could I? If they are capable of casting our love aside as simply as changing underwear, then what sense would it make for me to be the only one fighting against our separation? It would be asinine at best. They tried comforting me through physical touch and asked if it was okay, to which the first couple of times I denied their advances. Because that numerical word that symbolizes us will never be true ever again. The third time truly was the charm, though. I laid down with them as they had been wishing from the moment we sat on the bed. They laid their head on my chest and placed their left leg on my legs. I initially barely had my left hand on their waist. It was essentially dangling there, as lifeless as I had felt in the moment. But their smell, their touch, the sound of their breathing, and their snuggling forced me into submission. I gripped them properly with my left hand on their waist and gripped their thigh with my right hand.

They ended up kissing me on my cheek, and that breathed life into my body once more. The next time they raised their head to kiss me, their lips were lovingly met with my lips. We could both feel the heat and passion from the dying love that was being casted away, as we entangled ourselves into the realm of sexual acts. Each kiss further chipped away at our relationship and love, signaling the indefinite end of us. Every caress mowed away each tear that was growing within my eyes. Their moans silenced the endless thoughts of what dread and loneliness would soon come. Their taste overcame the foul emptiness that my tastebuds would soon become well acquainted with. Every now and then, I would open my eyes and look at them. I would see them smiling, and it brought me some form of happiness because they were in pleasure, but simultaneously perplexed me as to how they could possibly smile.

Even if we are engaging in these acts, do you not feel the darkness that approaches from every corner that surrounds us? Or perhaps it is only I who is privy to it, as it is a feeling I have lived with for the majority of my life. But their light forced the darkness to hide away. And since they were soon be gone from my life, it had come out of hiding to reclaim my soul and drag me down into despair and hopelessness again.

After we finished, I couldn’t help but feel as though I could finally hear that same old song. The one that comes from the mouths of those who only desired me for my body and sexual ability. I have never once thought positively of either, but those I have been intimate with always had complimented both vigorously. And since I knew our relationship was going to be ending, I could finally hear that same old song, drifting off of their lips like a haunted ship coming into the port on a foggy night. How unfortunate it was to know that they too are just like the others that have come beforehand. I was utterly disappointed, though the fault is not theirs alone. I chose to engage in the activities as well, so it would have been wrong for me to have felt shocked or upset with what happened.

Eventually, we put our clothes back on and snapped out of the sexual trance we were in. It had felt like I could have been in that state without end, but lives can only be lived outside of a stasis. No matter the hypnotist, reality will always find a way to shatter. They informed me that they desired to still have me in their life, as friends no less. It felt like a swift slap to the face. They verily knew that there wasn’t a chance in a thousand and one lifetimes that I would be okay or satisfied with being friends. I still accepted the offer though. As I desired them in my life as well, though it has only ever felt like I was in theirs. I always casted aside that feeling, but cannot any longer. I weakly exclaimed how we would no longer be able to do all of what we had planned for the upcoming summer. Things like going to a beach in California and to Lake Havasu. Or playing our shared favorite video game series from the first iteration to the most recent. Including the spin-offs. Even more sexual things were all implied with that single plea. That plea of never getting to do.

They only replied with, “Well, we can still do some of those things.” I knew their words only struck at the sexual aspect. To which I replied, “So, you would want to be friends with benefits?” They say it was not their initial intent, but I secretly doubted their words due to their actions. Though, I am not blameless as the very same thought still crossed my mind, alongside the other desires of mine. I accepted this newfound aspect of us, and they asked what the boundaries should be. I told them to choose, and they said that we would no longer say goodnight or good morning to one another. Additionally, they would still see me as and call me their king. I agreed to this and set no terms of my own, though I undoubtedly had my reservations about it all.

I put on my shoes and they said they would accompany me out of the complex, but I denied this advance to no avail. They reluctantly chose to escort me nonetheless. I was appreciative of this, as I did desire to look upon them one last time before that parking garage door was closed in my face. It was better to look into their eyes when turning back, rather than the blank eyes of an unfriendly wall. Once we were at the door, we kissed some more and said our goodbyes. They said they needed time and would message me. I simply said okay and goodbye, and coldly made my way to my car.

The drive home was one of conversation, as I had spoken to one of my closest friends on what had transpired. They did their best to comfort me, but their comfort did nothing as my mind could only think on my now ex-partner. Once I got home, I chose to try to silence the thoughts of them by smoking my wax pen, filled with sativa. It was my only friend in the end, right? I pulled on the pens tip as much as my former asthmatic lungs could bear. I put on the album “Trilogy” by The Weeknd and started with the track “Wicked Games.” As I climbed the mountain and peaked at the highest point, my true emotions roared at the peak, and flooded all of the terrain that seemingly laid thousands of miles below my feet. I cried out for them to come back to me and repetitively asked: why? I ensured that I could not hear my voice as I cried out in deep pain by turning up the music volume to the max. It subsequently shook the ground in tandem to my tearful stomps. My body felt ever weak and heavy. Each bow I made, every tear that fell onto my carpet, and each stomp further drove me into my dejection and rejection of reality.

I was swallowed by the hollow-heart that was birthed within me. My mind was a wreck and I could no longer remember how to stand. I could only lay on the floor, as gravity permitted that to be my only ability. My only motor function that I could control was my breathing. Which came in short bursts between my sorrowful lamenting of our relationship. The carpet soon became a bathtub that I ended up submerged in. The peak of the mountain left me immobile and drowning. I had never wept like this before, not even for the first love of my life. I had only known this new ex of mine for a few months, and loved them for almost the same amount of time. Yet, it felt like I lost the love of my life, my soulmate. Like a piece of my soul and heart, no, all of both were ripped from me, tainted and befouled, and then shredded into dust.

As I laid there, my phone was the only thing that snapped me back into the ability of doing. They texted me about me receiving money from them. I checked my bank account and swiftly sent the money back. They had attempted to repay me for the housewarming gifts I bought them, but to take the money, or rather to even try giving me the money was unyieldingly offensive. I told them to keep it and to receive it as a gift and nothing less. They accepted, and mentioned how much they appreciated me and that they were sorry for hurting me. Those words left me stuck upon a spear of perplexity for four hours. Once said time had passed, I mustered the courage to reply and minutely spilled some of my emotions to them. Their replies only further cemented our end and left me more hurt than before. Replies of them still loving me and wanting to see me again “soon.”

I always hated that word when it came to something I desired with all of what I had to give. For it never came into fruition. But perhaps this may be different. Perhaps all of the suffering I had endured that day will soon lead me back to them, and we could be together once more. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. More than likely never again. As I know that all happiness in my life is ever so brief, and that I would be foolish to think otherwise. For time never has been able to heal my wounds. It only has repeatedly placed a newer bandage upon the wound. And the new affliction was no different. There was only one true solution to it all. There was only one way that I may have been relieved from the pain of having lost them. But I was too afraid of what the consequences would be. So, I had to sit there and wallow in bleak despair. Ever hoping for the day that I could once again embrace my angel. Yet, every angel is terrifying to no end. Lead me, O Terrible Angel of mine, into the horrid heaven that you hath descended from. I only want you, and will only love you. End it all for me…